Wednesday, November 25, 2009

under a bus


For a long time now people have been using falling under a bus as a convenient way of representing mundane, random death. I don't want to get all philosophical but why a bus? In Melbourne we tend to see trams as the people mover in streets, though you hear a lot more of people falling under trains and dying, than you do under trams, for some reason. Of course the most common transport-related cause of death is car accidents, but for some reason these seem more gruesome and 'that's horrible' than falling under a bus, though most of us can expect on present indicators to die prolongedly in drawn-out and miserable care institutions. Is there something vaguely comforting about falling under a bus? Does one think of Big Ears driving the bus full of cotton-reel people, and it's only the Mayor of Toytown who's hit, and he just gets a red mark on his forehead?

Usually falling under a bus is summoned by people who generally indulge in thoughtless, risky self-harming behaviour eg smoking, as 'oh well, I could die from lung or throat or some other cancer, but I could fall under a bus, so...' (the 'so...' meaning, 'The randomness of the world means I refuse to partake in any consideration of what, all other things being equal, the likely outcome of my behaviour will be.') But I have also in work scenarios had it suggested to me that I keep various files and other research materials user-friendly in case I fall under a bus. Strangely, I did feel this was a pretty benign way of putting it, and I wouldn't have felt that way if instead it was suggested I might have been garrotted or fall off a tall building.

So what exactly is so great about falling under a bus?

5 comments:

Kirsty said...

I always think of poor old Roland Barthes.

David Nichols said...

Hit by a laundry van. That has a different kind of strange mundanity to it doesn't it.

BwcaBrownie said...

the very first SouthPark I saw had the yellow school bus
"you bastard!" kill Kenny.

There is an excellent film 'Stranger Than Fiction' - Emma Thompson plays a blocked writer - where Will Ferrell DOES get hit by his bus.

but you are right. it's trams.
they swerve into people too often.

Francis Xavier Holden said...

Isn't it "run over by a tram"

Big in my Risk Management Circles.

Anonymous said...

Yes BwcaBrownie, I love "Stranger than Fiction" too! Now, I don't know if you guys have ever been under a bus but it's not funny. Last year I took some viagra pills mixed with alcohol "just for the fun"... the rest of the story is pretty much me under a bus.
Stupid thing to do.

the early 70s was all juxtaposition

October 1970, everyone had their arms out in the air, from Barbra to, um, whoever that is on the left, to Thumbelina. This is from the Sprin...